I'd say that before Google, "AltaVista knew". In my experience, it was AltaVista that transformed the web/Internet from a collection of disparate sites to a single place that you went for answers to questions.

Before AltaVista, I used to write the URL for any useful web and ftp servers that I found in a logbook, so I could find them again. Getting an answer was a matter of looking up the logbook, deciding which website might have the required information, then typing the URL into my browser. After AltaVista the logbook fell into disuse, as locating information was a matter of typing a few well chosen keywords into AltaVista and visiting a few of its top hits.

Google took over from AltaVista, but at the time it felt like Google was a "better AltaVista" than something completely new.